Using the Trump Presidency to Guess Which Movies Will Be Great in 2018

The President of the United States of America does more than just rule the free world; they also have an indirect impact of the movies released while they’re in office. Depending on which political party holds the White House, different genres of movies are more or less likely to have a great entry released during their term.

The president obviously isn’t making these movies, but who’s in power is indicative of the country’s collective state of mind. So of course Hollywood is going to work to exploit those feelings (for $$$) by trying to make more movies that reflect our collective hopes and fears. And when Hollywood devotes more time/energy/money into something, chances are they’ll create at least a few great things.

Let’s look at Trump’s first year as an example. As you’ll see below, the genre most likely to have a great release during a Republican president is horror. In the horror genre, 2017 saw the release of both It and Get Out. A great war movie also has a stronger chance of being released during a Republican presidency, and 2017 produced a great one in Dunkirk. (Of course, these movies were planned and in production before Trump took office, but the national mood that made it their time also made it Trump’s time, even if their purposes and his purposes, their audiences and his audience, may differ.) The same kinds of trends hold true for Obama, both Bushes, and more.

Our Method

Keeping things very simple, we took the 50 greatest American movies made in a number of different genres between 1961 and 2017. We started with JFK taking office in 1961 because his presidency in many ways set up the differences between the two modern major political parties (and gives us a nearly equal split in terms of years in office for each party.) We made a number line for each genre and moved left/right depending on whose term the movie was made during. The further the line moved away from center, the more likely it is we’ll see a great movie from that genre during a political party’s reign.

Horror (+38% More Likely During Republican Presidencies)

Flickchart’s Top 10¹ American² Horror³ Movies, 1961-2017:

¹The top 50 in each genre were used for data analysis; the top 10 is not always reflective of the general trend (see the War entry, for example.)
²Country of origin is often debatable.A good-faith effort has been made to include films that are primarily American or for American audiences, but the American presidency affects the entire world to some degree, and ambiguous cases remain.
³Some movies belong to multiple genres on this list. Genres are of course debatable, but existing Flickchart genre tags are used.

Alien (Democratic)

The Shining (Democratic)

Aliens (Republican)

Jaws (Republican)

The Thing (Republican)

Predator (Republican)

Rosemary’s Baby (Democratic)

Evil Dead II (Republican)

An American Werewolf in London (Republican)

Night of the Living Dead (Democratic)

2018’s Potentially Great Horror Movies:

A Quiet Place

Winchester

The Purge: The Island

Halloween

Patient Zero

Action (+27% More Likely During Republican Presidencies)

Flickchart’s Top 10 American Action Movies, 1961-2017:

Star Wars (Democratic)

The Empire Strikes Back (Democratic)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (Republican)

Return of the Jedi (Republican)

The Dark Knight (Republican)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Republican)

Die Hard (Republican)

The Matrix (Democratic)

Blade Runner (Republican)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Republican)

2018’s Potentially Great Action Movies:

Avengers: Infinity War

Black Panther

The Predator

Deadpool 2

Aquaman

Tomb Raider

Rampage

Gringo

Skyscraper

War (+22% More Likely During Republican Presidencies)

Flickchart’s Top 10 American War Movies, 1961-2017:

Apocalypse Now (Democratic)

Schindler’s List (Democratic)

Saving Private Ryan (Democratic)

Full Metal Jacket (Republican)

Inglourious Basterds (Democratic)

The Great Escape (Democratic)

Braveheart (Democratic)

The Deer Hunter (Democratic)

Platoon (Republican)

The Dirty Dozen (Democratic)

2018’s Potentially Great War Movies:

Surprisingly, nothing really jumps out. 12 Strong turned out on the weak side, and there isn’t much beyond that. There might be a new Terrence Malick war movie, but he’s been so hit-or-miss lately that it’s hard to say how that’ll turn out.

Dan lives for five things: Movies, Jazz Rap, Statistics, Chili, and his family who have no idea how huge a nerd he really is. Like almost everybody else on this page, he has a job dealing with computer/internet-y things for a company he helped start after college. You can find him on Flickchart as espin39.